cts. Such a subject will discharge a
blank-loaded pistol at one, when told to do so, or stab him with a
paper dagger. While admitting the facts, the Nancy theorists claim
that the subject knows the performance to be a farce; gets suggestions
of the unreality of it from the experimenters, and so acquiesces. This
is probably true, as is seen in frequent cases in which patients have
refused, in hypnotic sleep, to perform suggested acts which shocked
their modesty, veracity, etc. This goes to show that the Nancy school
are right in saying that while in Hypnosis suggestibility is
exaggerated to an enormous degree, still it has limits in the more
well-knit habits, moral sentiments, social opinions, etc., of the
subject. And it further shows that Hypnosis is probably, as they
claim, a temporary disturbance, rather than a pathological condition
of mind or body.

There have been many remarkable and sensational cases of cure of
disease by hypnotic suggestion, reported especially in France. That
hysteria in many of its manifestations has been relieved is certainly
true; but that any organic, structural disease has ever been cured by
hypnotism is unproved. It is not regarded by medical authorities as an
agent of much therapeutic value, and is rarely employed; but it is
doubtful, in view of the natural prejudice caused by the pretensions
of charlatans, whether its merits have been fairly tested. On the
European Continent it has been successfully applied in a great variety
of cases; and Bernheim has shown that minor nervous troubles,
insomnia, migraines, drunkenness, lighter cases of rheumatism, sexual
and digestive disorders, together with a host of smaller temporary
causes of pain--corns, cricks in back and side, etc.--may be cured or
very materially alleviated by suggestions conveyed in the hypnotic
state. In many cases such cures are permanently effected with aid from
no other remedies. In a number of great city hospitals patients of
recognised classes are at once hypnotized, and suggestions of cure
made. Liebeault, the founder of the Nancy school, has the credit of
having first made use of hypnosis as a remedial agent. It is also
becoming more and more recognised as a method of controlling
refractory and violent patients in asylums and reformatory
institutions. It must be added, however, that psychological theory
rather than medical practice is seriously concerning itself with this
subject.

_Theory._--Two rival theories are